DESCRIPTION

Stores information about a FITS header item (in the FITS standard these are called Card Images). FITS Card Images can be parsed and broken into their component keyword, values and comments. Card Images can also be created from its components keyword, value and comment.

METHODS

Constructor

new

Create a new instance. Optionally can be given a hash containing information from a header item or the card image itself.

The special type, "HEADER", is used to specify that this item refers to a subsidiary header (eg a header in an MEFITS file or a header in an NDF in an HDS container). See also the subhdrs method in Astro::FITS::Header for an alternative way of specifying a sub-header.

The type is case-insensitive, but will always be returned up-cased.

card

Return (or set) the 80 character header card associated with this object. It is created if there is no cached version.

$card = $item->card();

If a new card is supplied it will only be accepted if it is 80 characters long or fewer. The string is padded with spaces if it is too short. No attempt (yet) )is made to shorten the string if it is too long since that may require a check to see if the value is a string that must be shortened with a closing single quote. Returns undef on assignment failure (else returns the supplied string).

$status = $item->card( $card );

undef is returned if there is insufficient information in the object to create a new card. Can assign undef to clear the cache.

This method is called automatically when attempting to stringify the object.

$card = "$item";

General Methods

configure

Configures the object from multiple pieces of information.

$item->configure( %options );

Takes a hash as argument with the following keywords:

Card

If supplied, the value is assumed to be a standard 80 character FITS header card. This is sent to the parse_card method directly. Takes priority over any other key.

If it is an Astro::FITS::Header::Item it will be copied rather than parsed.

Keyword

Used to specify the keyword associated with this object.

Value

Used to specify the value associated with this FITS item.

Comment

Used to specify the comment associated with this FITS item.

Type

Used to specify the variable type. See the type method for more details. A type will be guessed if one is not supplied. The guess may well be wrong.

Does nothing if these keys are not supplied.

freeze

Method to return a blessed reference to the object so that we can store ths object on disk using Data::Dumper module.

parse_card

Parse a FITS card image and store the keyword, value and comment into the object.

($key, $val, $com) = $item->parse_card( $card );

Returns an empty list on error.

equals

Compares this Item with another and returns true if the keyword, value, type and comment are all equal.

$isident = $item->equals( $item2 );

SEE ALSO

Astro::FITS::Header

COPYRIGHT

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place,Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA